Category: Family

Cooler still – 21 July 2022

Posted on by Zogman

It looks like the temperature is returning to the ‘seasonal norm’.

Distinctly cooler today. Not cold by any means, but much cooler than it was in the heights of the ‘heatwave’. Neither of us was in a rush to go out today. Wordles were done and results compared.

Hazy phoned in the morning and gave us the lowdown on living through a ‘heatwave’. She had us laughing at the antics of the cats, lying across the doorway, not willing to move, because it was cool there. It reminded me of a poem “Cats sleep anywhere” by Eleanor Farjeon. Glad Canute has had his op and it was successful. Also glad that Neil is almost finished his marking and his ‘true’ holidays can begin. Enjoy them, Neil. Hazy and I discussed my latest book, The Galaxy, and the Ground Within. Then she and Scamp discussed Virgin River, the next series. Once we’d said our ‘cheerios’, it was time for lunch.

We didn’t do much in the afternoon apart from have lunch and fritter away some time on games. Eventually I took the Sony A7iii out for a walk in St Mo’s and got a fairly good landscape shot of the park. Lovely cloudscape that appeared after a bit of post processing. Another few grasshopper shots and some close ups of wild orchids, but just not close enough to be PoD. That went to the landscape with clouds.

Back home we discussed dinner. It seems that most of our day is concerned with food; making it, cooking it or eating it. This time we were discussing it and finally settled on Chicken and Pea Traybake. A nice easy meal, as long as you have chicken and peas. We had the peas, but the chicken was still in Tesco, waiting to be bought. It didn’t have to wait too long. I volunteered to buy some. I also volunteered to cook it. It was lovely.

We watered the garden tonight. I tossed a coin. Heads I did the front (the easy bit) Tails I did the back (much more stuff to water). It was tails. I hadn’t realised just how much the temperature had dropped. Shorts and a tee shirt on a warm evening is fine, but not so on a rapidly cooling one. However I think I did a fair job of it, although it looks as if we might not need to water it for the next week at least. Weather fronts after weather fronts are approaching from the Atlantic.

I got an email from Alex to say that all of the house with the exception of 8 year old Sophie have tested positive for Covid. Glad now that we didn’t agree to do a photo walk. According to Alex the symptoms are fairly mild.

Tomorrow Scamp may be going to an exercise class in the morning. I won’t be doing any energetic exercises, thank you very much!

Driving Miss Robinson – 11 July 2022

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Well, actually Mrs Robinson, but that’s just splitting hairs.

As a birthday treat, we were taking Isobel out for lunch. We drove down to Gouldings in Rosebank on Clydeside. It wasn’t quite as sunny today as it was yesterday and Saturday, but it was plenty warm enough.

Before the outing I took Scamp to the chemist to speak to the pharmacist because a cleg (horsefly) bite yesterday had caused her elbow to swell overnight and she needed something a bit stronger than Piriton tablets and Anthisan cream. The pharmacist gave her a course of penicillin tablets with a recommendation to go and see her doctor if it wasn’t improving in three or four days. We drove back home to let her take one of the tablets then we were off to pick up Isobel.

We drove down the M73 and the M74 to Larkhall where we took a detour through Larky, partly to avoid roadworks at Garrion Bridge and partly to let Isobel see where we used to live. We continued on to Netherburn and down to Clydeside then along to Gouldings which was quite quiet for a change. It was still morning, so the crowds hadn’t arrived yet, but they would. Got parked easily and waltzed in to find a table. Since Isobel is coeliac, her choice from the menu was a bit limited. She settled for Sweet Potato Soup while Scamp and I had Fish ’n’ Chips. We had a dessert too. I had a slice of Rhubarb pie and the other two shared a gigantic meringue with cream and strawberries. Then it was a walk around the plants, because as well as being a restaurant, originally Gouldings was a plant nursery. The ladies eventually bought five dahlia flowers between them. Scamp got a radiator brush she’s been looking for since January and Isobel got a hose connector to replace her broken one. Then we were off again.

We left Gouldings and drove along the Lanark Road to Lanark itself. Drove through the town to Lanark Loch and sat there for a while before we headed for home by the ‘Top Road’ through Carluke, Newmains and Airdrie before dropping the birthday girl off at her house. It’s not really her birthday for a few days yet, but that, again, is splitting hairs! I think she enjoyed her day out ‘in the country.’

We drove home and I changed into shorts and took a walk in St Mo’s while Scamp pondered where to put her new flowers. I saw a strange looking insect on a hogweed flower head. It had long dark brown wings folded over its body, a yellow abdomen and a black head with an orange spot just behind the head. After asking Mr Google, it turned out to be a Red Necked Footman moth. I think it’s more orange than red, but maybe it’s just a bit bleached in the hot summer sun! Anyway, it was an obvious PoD. In all I took 132 photos of that moth and a couple of other insects. Those 132 images have now been reduced to a more manageable 44.

When I got home both the dahlias were sitting in a large pot, still in their original pots because Scamp isn’t sure yet where they will go. We may find out tomorrow. Just the outside chance of some cooling rain tomorrow while the south of England swelters.

The swelling on Scamp’s cleg bite is much reduced tonight which is a relief. No plans for tomorrow yet. I hope it won’t involve driving, because that was a long run today, but very enjoyable.

Walking in the woods – 10 July 2022

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Another lovely day with wall to wall sunshine in the morning.

Scamp’s suggestion for today was a walk round Broadwood with the extension through the woods. It suited me too because it meant I didn’t have to drive. Just for the sake of it, we went anticlockwise as opposed to our usual clockwise walk. I didn’t think there would be much to photograph and I was right. We did see a pair of crested grebes on Broadwood Loch, but they were too far away. I think it was just the feeling of being out with shorts and tee shirt in the sunshine that made the walk interesting. Also, for me, not lugging a camera and a couple of lenses, just one small camera with one lens made the walk more enjoyable. An as yet unnamed butterfly followed us on our Sunday morning walk through the woods at Broadwood, stopping occasionally, but never long enough for me to get close. Finally, I thought I knew where it had landed, but then couldn’t see the insect. Purely by accident I triggered the shutter button and took a photo of a butterfly I couldn’t see! Almost perfect camouflage. That photo of the butterfly became PoD.

Back home for lunch and then I volunteered to walk down to the shops to get some salad veg for dinner and a carton of milk. No wee man to offer me a Mivvi today, but after I got home I thought I should really have bought a packet of them just to stick in the freezer.

While I was out, Scamp was hacking into the blackcurrant bush and doing a great job of cutting it back while opening it out to remove all the criss cross of branches in the centre of it, Those are the ones that limit the light getting in to the bush.

I was on dinner duty today and it was quiche. It’s a while since I’ve made quiche and I had to stick to Scamp and Jackie’s quantities and techniques to get the pastry made and then the filling added. Two quiches as it happened, one with broccoli, smoked salmon and tomatoes. One with cheese and tomatoes. We ate half of each and have the other half ready for tomorrow.

After dinner we sat out in the sun for a short while before deciding to water the garden. It really needed the water with the temperature reaching 25ºc which is positively tropical for Scotland. Later when Jamie phoned, we found that they could beat us with a 31ºc, but that’s becoming the norm for those in the Deep South. Who knows what the temperature was in London.

We watched an almost interesting Austrian GP with a commentator nearly bursting a blood vessel trying to make it sound like the earth shattering race it simply wasn’t. Nice try, pal. Hope the blood pressure is back to normal now.

Now here’s a strange thing. I just checked and the title of the blog one year ago in the 10th of July 2021 was … “Walking in the woods”. Maybe I’m becoming predictable. Hope not!

Tomorrow we may go out for a drive. Not been out driving for ages.

Culture Vultures – 5 July 2022

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A day in the Toon with my brother.

Today I took the train in to Glasgow thanks to a lift from Scamp. In Glasgow I met my brother and we went on the bus to Kelvingrove Art Gallery. There’s also a museum there, but I was more interested in the art gallery today. Of course I also wanted to take a few photos and have a blether with Alex.

By the time we got there, the daily organ recital was about to start and this gave us the chance to do a bit of people watching and of course, and of course, with watching comes photographing. I was amazed at, not just the dexterity of the organist, but also the jive he was doing with his feet on the pedals, all thanks to two live feeds showing his hands and feet on two tv screens.

When the recital was over we went for a quick bite to eat and a natter then went to see a retrospective of artist John Byrne’s work. The size of the paintings and the quantity were astounding. Little things, too stuck I’m my mind, like the letter he wrote to René Magritte, addressed to Magritte, Belgium. And it not only got there, but also generated a reply by the Belgian artist. There was so much to look at, we stayed for an hour or so before going back upstairs to take more photos.

Alex wanted to photograph the famous laughing and crying heads that hang from the roof in one of the rooms. I went looking for a couple of paintings I liked. Unfortunately, one was out on loan to Auckland in New Zealand and one simply wasn’t there, but there was no one to tell me where it had disappeared to. What I did find was a restored Van Gough painting of Alexander Reid from Glasgow. Then another favourite, Roses by Samuel Peploe. A bit of culture does you no harm.

Eventually we met up again and had one more cup of coffee just as the cafe was closing. After that we left to catch the bus back in to Glasgow where Alex went to one side of the bus station and I went to the other to get home the cheap (free) way. A good day in town.

When I got home Scamp was sitting in the garden enjoying the last of the day’s sunshine as the clouds started to roll in, but we did manage a glass of beer each and discuss our different days. She had done some washing and if you’ve waded through the foregoing, you know what I did.

PoD was a close up of the elaborate door handles from Kelvingrove.

No plans for tomorrow. It looks like rain. I don’t know if Boris has made plans for tomorrow. Since his Health secretary and his Chancellor resigned this afternoon, he may be looking for a competent removals firm!

Recovery – 26 June 2022

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We got to bed too late last night and suffered the consequences today.

With that in mind, we decided to have a more relaxed day today and possibly get to bed at a more reasonable hour. Hopefully on the same day we got up. So here I am writing this blog at 22:50. That means I have just about an hour to get all the ducks in a row and in the right order. Here goes!

A late start to the day, but that was inevitable. We filled the washing machine and set it to work. The poor thing must have been almost totally full, but it struggled manfully with the load. Then Scamp phoned June to see if she was at home and entertaining visitors. She answered “Yes” to both questions, so Scamp gathered together all the things belonging to either June or Ian that she (Scamp) had brought back from Skye and hadn’t got round to returning to their rightful owner(s). Then she drove up to June’s house and deposited them and basically had a good blether with June for the rest of the morning. Me? I just messed around as I usually do on a Sunday morning. Doing nothing, but filling my time with it!

After Scamp had returned and we’d had lunch the washing was done, but it looked like it was raining, so we waited before committing to hanging out the washing. When the rain came on in a more serious way, Scamp gave up on the idea of hanging out the washing and just hung most of it on airers of various types around the house.

In between the showers, the sun nearly came out and the sky got a bit brighter, lighting up some alliums in a bunch of cut flowers on the table. I took some photos of the flowers and one of them eventually became PoD. I used the LensBaby Sweet 35, but didn’t actually label the photo with that as there is a bit of snobbery in photographic circles about using LensBaby lenses. I can’t see why. It’s a distorting lens, yes, but all lenses distort reality to some degree. To ostracise cheap(ish) lenses purely because they are not made by Nikon, Canon or Sony is simple snobbery, and it has no place in my photography.

We discussed dinner and set plans for Chicken Goujons with potatoes and broccoli. All was fine and well, until Scamp took the chicken out of the fridge and asked me to smell it. It was definitely off and went in the bin. I volunteered to walk down to the shops to get more. It wasn’t really raining by then, just a smirr in the wind but the wind was gusty and cold.

We were fated not to have those chicken goujons today, because the chicken fillets I’d bought turned out to be a bit tough. However they weren’t so tough that we couldn’t eat them.

We got a message from Jamie to say that they’d been working in the garden all day and time had just disappeared, they’d phone tomorrow. At least they had some sun by the sound of things. We’d just had wind and rain.

I did get a chance to write to Alex. Hope he’s feeling better and we can do a catch-up this week.

Tomorrow, we have to take my good suit (ie the one that fits me) to the cleaners to get some stains removed. Other than that nothing much to do. Weather looks better than today, but Tuesday? You don’t want to know what the weather forecast is for Tuesday.

Coffee in Costa – 23 June 2022

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We were booked to meet Isobel for coffee in Costa.

The two ladies didn’t have coffee, they each had a latte, which is coffee for those who don’t like coffee. I had a cortado which is coffee for those who like cups without handles. I still can’t get used to seeing Isobel without her glasses on. Since she’s had a cataract removed, she doesn’t seem to need glasses. It’s still strange to me. Scamp had driven to the Town Centre in her car, and she drove all three of us down to the Village with me sitting like Lord Muck in the back!

With Isobel saved a walk to the bus stop and then a walk through the Village to her house, we two drove on to the Garden Centre because Scamp wanted a pair of semi-circular metal supports for her roses, to keep the heavy flower heads from falling down. We couldn’t find any. I suggested we try B&Q. They did have what we were looking for, but they weren’t nearly strong enough looking, so we went home via Tesco of course.

After lunch I thought I’d better wash the car, because I’m taking Scamp and Jeanette for afternoon refreshments at Moira’s house, to christen her new summerhouse. I couldn’t have Jeanette sitting in a mucky car, certainly not one covered in seagull crap. That spent a good half hour and gave me a chance to listen to the end of ‘Baggage’ Alan Cumming’s excellent autobiography.

With the wee Blue car glistening in occasional glimpses of sunshine, I went over to St Mo’s with two cameras. One had the long, heavy macro lens and the other had the short, but still heavy Lensbaby 35 attached. Found today’s PoD which I think is either a trap for unwary insects or more likely a nest for mummy spider’s spiderlings when they hatch from their eggs. Either way it made a strange abstract looking object that could actually be a design for a post-modern building! Or am I dreaming?

A seat in the sun in the  garden was calling to us after a fairly successful chicken stir-fry I managed to make. No drinks were drunk this time, just tea for me and coffee for Scamp. Tomorrow may be different for at least one of us.

I watched the first episode of Slough House. Hazy, you can tell Neil that I completely agree. The typecasting of Lamb is perfect. So too was River Cartwright, exactly what I thought he would look like. Roddy Ho is the only one who wasn’t quite spot on, IMHO. Brilliant television.

Tomorrow I’m booked to Scamp and Jeanette and James will bring them back. That leaves me with a free afternoon which would be great but it looks like rain, I’m afraid!

Dancing in the Sunshine – 19 June 2022

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None of yer Slow – Slow – Quick – Quack – Slooow, ballroom dancin’. Dancin’! Reely dancin’. Salsa dancin’.

Spoke to Hazy in the morning and thanked her for her very funny card (No, I wasn’t offended, I can improve in the resit!), and her Father’s Day present. It’s official now, I’m an Artist! I’ve got the mug to prove it! Good to know that you didn’t have too much trouble with thunderstorms down south.

It was a lovely morning and I’d actually planned to go for a walk in Colzium estate, but left it too late, as usual. Instead we took our time over lunch and then got ready to drive down to Glasgow Green for today’s main event. Shannon the salsa teacher had organised a Salsa Picnic, bring your own blanket and food. We got there just as things were heating up and after meeting folk we hadn’t seen for years, we did manage a few dances. Then more chatting to old friends, then Shannon started a Rueda where we dance with a partner in a big circle and the leader calls out the move and everyone performs it at the same time. Then we change parters when we’re told to and so it goes on. That’s the theory, anyway. In reality it never works quite as smoothly or as simply as that. Some folk had never danced a Rueda before, others thought they knew, but didn’t. It was what it usually is, a car crash. But, and this is the most important thing, but it was a good humoured car crash. Nobody fell out with anyone else, everybody, even me was kind and considerate to everyone else.

However, dancing two Ruedas, one after the other and energetic couple dancing too takes it out of us ‘oldies’, so we excused ourselves and went for a walk round Glasgow Green where there seemed to be an early Gay Pride meeting for teens. We walked round it but didn’t buy into it. We’ll wait for the real Gay Pride procession in Glasgow on Saturday. So much more, I don’t know, maybe just grown up!

We walked back to the Doulton Fountain where the salsa was going on. We had another dance and then found more folk we hadn’t met face to face for years. I took a few photos, but my favourite and PoD was one of an Indian group having a big family picnic on the grass of The Green. One of the salsa dancers had brought his drone along and was filming the dancing from an elevated position. However, my little brain was full and I’d danced almost all moves at least twice. That’s what happens when you don’t practise every week, you just remember the moves you like the best. We drove home.

We sat in the garden for a while with a good book each soaking up some sun and watching the busy bees. Since it was Father’s day, I got to choose my dinner. I chose Mince ’n’ Tatties and Scamp chose ‘Rats’. It’s nice to get real (not posh, not fancy) food.

Spoke to Jamie later and told him I appreciated the ’Scottish’ Father’s day card from my ‘Wane’ not ‘Wain’ as some say or ‘Wean’ as it should be. Good to hear that they are bat free at present. If you have any more problems with the bats, just call in Hazy and Neil, they have experience dealing with the flying rats!

A few more minutes out in the sun, then it was time to call a halt, because that east wind was becoming a bit cool, so it was time to bring the seats in and shut the back door.

That was a good day. I thoroughly enjoyed it. So did Scamp. So nice to have a dance in the sunshine and to have such a clever and thoughtful family behind you.

Maybe going east tomorrow and maybe on the bus.

More rain, more wind – 12 June 2022

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Is this really ‘Flaming’ June, I ask?

One of those days for relaxing and looking out at the weather, but you can’t always be sitting on your bum. You sometimes have to force yourself to go out and do things, to move is enough some times. Today, Scamp was cutting flowers and tidying up in the garden. My part in it was staking the Honey Bells that are all in full flower and providing a great feeding ground for the bees. Unfortunately the wind is bending their stems into weird shapes. This makes the flower heads bob about even more and causes the bees problems as they are coming in to land. A few bamboo canes and some garden twine gave them the support to keep the stems vertical while still allowing a bit of movement.

After lunch I was mooching around the house again and needed to get out and find a photo. I drove up to Fannyside and found my parking space empty this time. I had a walk up the road towards a farm. I’d brought two cameras with me. The A6000 had a Sigma 10-20mm very wide angle lens and the A7iii had the massive Sigma 105mm macro. Two Sigma lenses separated by about 15 years. Both exceptional in their own fields. However, it was the 105mm that got both of todays ‘keeper’ shots, and PoD went to a landscape shot of some stunted trees with the Campsie Fells in the background.

Dinner tonight was a lightly smoked salmon fillet with broccoli and crushed baby potatoes and chives. Light and lovely. This from a man who says he doesn’t really like salmon!

We watched the Azerbaijan GP. It was a race full of failures for the Ferrari powered cars, I lost count of how many failed to finish. Not a good day for the leaping horses!

Spoke to Jamie in the evening and heard more about bat surveys, and their cost. Scamp and I were really impressed by Simonne’s photos from the garden. Some beautiful flowers there, well done the pair of you.

The winds died down in the evening as they have done for the past week, let’s hope they don’t return tomorrow.

I’m taking Scamp to hospital tomorrow to discuss a little problem with her eyes. Apparently it’s been there for a long time, but the cataract surgery has brought it to the optician’s attention. I’ve got a doc’s appointment for a check up in the late afternoon. Twice in a fortnight! I’m getting my money’s worth from the NHS now.

A Busy Day – 9 June 2022

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This was always going to be a busy day. The question was ‘How Busy?’

I was first out. I was driving Scamp’s wee Red car down to Jim Dickson’s garage to get its exhaust fixed. It was a hairy drive with the exhaust banging and clanging all the way there and once I got to the village, I had the speed bumps to contend with. I was praying that the exhaust would hold on until we reached the garage. It did. I got it booked in and left to meet Scamp, who was driving the Blue car and had picked up Shona.

We swapped over drivers at the village and I drove the rest of the way to the hospital just outside Falkirk. Shona was going there for an X-ray to check that her broken arm was healing properly. With her dropped off, we drove to Torwood garden centre for a cup of coffee and a cake each. Then we walked round the plants. We were really looking for some bark to put on the plant pots to retain some moisture in them and also to dissuade the slugs from eating them. Apparently slugs don’t like crawling over bark. By the way, bark has now been renamed “Woof!” in the house. Oh! the fun we’ve had with that 🤨. We did find some bags of bark which would actually fit into the car and dumped one in a shopping trolley.

Of course we had a look at some of the plants too. Both of us have been looking for a plant called Snow in Summer. It used to be very common, but we couldn’t find it anywhere. Today Scamp found what looked like a pot of it. I checked the name on my phone and it was indeed correct. We got two pots of it, one small one to go in with the alpines and another to go into the general garden. Pelargonium Grandiflorum was our other purchase. Lovely colourful big flowers.  I found a part of the garden centre I’d not seen before.  It’s laid out as a sort of zoo enclosure with resin cast animals in it.  Some quite realistic, some not so much.  I took a couple of photos on the better examples.  They’re up on Flickr.

We loaded them all into the car boot and sat for a few minutes before Shona phoned to say she was ready to go. She had offered to buy lunch for us, so we drove to Broadwood Farm and had a taste of their carvery lunch. Scamp had turkey, Shona knew the server 😉 and got turkey, ham and beef. I had ham and beef. There was mash, carrot and turnip, peas, stuffing and gravy to hand and I think I had all of them except the mash. A very enjoyable lunch.

After lunch we went back to our house for Shona to see the wedding photos from two weeks ago. Halfway through the show I got a phone call to say the car was ready. When the show was finally over we drove Shona home, then down to the garage where we swapped over again and Scamp drove home while I settled the bill and followed her home.

There was a rain shower just as I was going out to get some photos, this time with the A6000. I’d taken a few shots earlier and although they looked good on the camera, I wanted a few more just to be sure. This time I used the 55-210mm lens, but the gusty wind made it a hit or a miss. In the end it was a shot of some daisies waking from the rain that got PoD.

I drove Scamp up to the Link in the evening to get her Pneumonia jag. It’s a once-only jag for over 65s.

That was a busy day with so many changes and things done. However, the wee Red car is back in business. Now all we need to do is save up enough money to put some petrol in its tank!

Tomorrow there is talk of going somewhere, possibly for lunch.

 

Maybe the last sunny day – 5 June 2022

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A bit of a lazy, sunny Sunday, but it looks like it’s downhill for the weather now.

Spoke to Hazy in the morning and caught up on all that was happening with them and the extended family. Neither of them feeling fully fit yet, but that’s to be expected. Sometime you just have to take things a bit easier and let the world turn at its rate.

We started out doing a bit of gentle garden work under a warm sun, but with a cool breeze. For me, today’s work meant pruning away seed heads on the aquilegia just to make sure they don’t seed everywhere as they did last year, dead heading the lupins, and checking that we hadn’t lost any peas, kale or leeks over the past couple of days. It looks to me as if I’ve already lost a pea plant, but there was no sign of slug trails, so maybe it was one of the hungry birds that had done the dirty on me. I’ll maybe do my mum’s trick and stretch some black cotton thread across the raised bed. Scares the living daylights out of the birds! Scamp, of course was right in there in the front garden, digging out weeds and cutting down excess growth in the bushes.

Soon it was lunch time and after that, Scamp went walking down to the shops to get some stuff for tonight’s dinner while I prepared mine. Today I was cooking some diced pork I’d bought months ago. Neither of us had any experience of cooking it, so I stuck fairly close to a recipe I’d downloaded from BBC Food. Basically you fried off the meat to start with and put it in a slow cooker, then it was the turn of some bacon to be fried and added to the slow cooker next the veg was cooked and added with an uncooked peeled, cored and chopped apple. Finally, in went about half a bottle of cider, some herbs and some water and half a chicken stock cube. Put the lid on and cook on low for six hours, it said. I didn’t have six hours, so I cooked it on auto for about four hours and the meat was falling off the fork when it came out.

While Scamp rested I went out with a macro lens on the camera hoping to see that dragonfly again. My backup was some yellow flag irises that I reckoned would be in flower by now. No dragonfly to be seen, but the irises were beautiful. They got PoD I also found that the newly sown grass football park behind St Mo’s school has some lovely wee red poppies in with the grass seed.

Spoke to Jamie later and heard all about bat investigations and preparations for exiting his present employment to head for pastures new. Never easy, although I must say that it’s a very long time since I had to do that. Some time around 1980 I believe!

Tomorrow I think I’m taking the wee Red car down to the village to see about a new exhaust.